


Loss

by faikitty



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Horror, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Loss of Control, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faikitty/pseuds/faikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian knows he can trust Joseph. Request for Sebastian walking in on Joseph holding a knife and standing over a dead body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

Sebastian knows he can trust Joseph.

So he doesn’t so much as blink when they have to split up during a potentially dangerous mission. It’s their first job back on the force, after the extensive medical and psychological treatment their torture at the hands of Ruvik necessitated. They’re acting more as police than detectives tonight, and their mission is simple: break into an apartment and rescue a kidnapped woman. Their coworkers have done the bulk of the detective work, and they’ve pinned down the missing woman’s location to a certain apartment in the slums of the city, a place everyone on the force is familiar with thanks to the gang violence and domestic disputes that occur there on a daily basis. Sebastian knows he and Joseph are being sent there as a way to ease them back into their old routine. The pair is familiar with the area, and the mission itself should, at least in theory, be easy. The kidnapped woman should be trapped in the apartment, unable to free herself, but the man responsible leaves for approximately two hours every night between 8 and 10. That ought to be more than enough time for them to sneak in, rescue the woman, and get back out. Her rescue is more important than the man’s arrest, so they can’t risk going in while he’s home and possibly having him kill her.

Sebastian and Joseph sit out in an unmarked car, Sebastian reclining with a cigarette between his lips while Joseph keeps a watchful eye on the apartment. Sure enough, the man leaves around 8, and once they’re certain he’s gone, they hurry up the metal stairs to the apartment and break down the door.

Joseph goes in first, veering off to the side immediately to press up against the wall. There’s a pile of newspapers in the middle of the room, all with attractive women pictured in the cover story, visible by the city light creeping in through the windows alone. Sebastian picks one up and grimaces at the sticky substance on it, too light of a color to be blood—although, there is plenty of _that_ as well.

“This place is like something straight out of a god damn horror movie,” Sebastian says, throwing the paper down and returning his finger to rest lightly on the trigger of his gun. The man may be gone, but he has to stay on guard in case there’s a second or even third person that they don’t know about.

“I was never a fan of horror films,” Joseph replies, sliding along the wall in an attempt to avoid the mess in the middle of the room. “I don’t think I’ll like them any more after this.”

They make their way through the room quietly and head down a hallway. Two bedrooms meet them at the end of the hall, each dark and eerily silent. Joseph meets Sebastian’s eyes, nods, and slips into the right one.

Sebastian mirrors the movement. He still can’t hear anything, but the unmistakable stench of death hits his nostrils even stronger the moment he steps through the doorway. He feels for the light switch and flicks it on, almost grateful for Ruvik’s torment if only for how it strengthened his stomach. His eyes land on the deer carcass first, lying half-decomposed in the middle of the room, its stomach bloated with gas and its eyes—the remaining one, at least—all red. Somehow, Sebastian doubts the man who killed it is a hunter. He scans the room for any _human_ body parts, but thankfully, all that seem to be here are animals in varying states of decaying and dismemberment.

“The guy’s a fucking psychopath,” Sebastian mutters. He picks his way past the blood and guts and bones to the back closet. He half-expects a literal skeleton to fall out of it, but instead, there are only more newspaper clippings and a few rusted knives that he thinks were used to kill these animals, even if he doesn’t know _why_. He can only hope they weren’t used on his and Joseph’s target as well.

Then he hears the scream.

His brain analyzes the sound even as his body moves automatically: a woman, in immense pain, terrified, likely the very person he and Joseph are trying to find. He ducks into the other room just as the scream ends abruptly.

“Freeze!” Sebastian cocks his gun and points it at the silhouette of the man by the window. The room is still dark. He can’t see who it is, but he _can_ see the body of a woman, her hair tangled in the fist of the man. “Drop the girl and put your hands up. Now.” Keeping his gun pointed at his target, he feels along the wall for a light, and when it’s finally on, he sees that the man is—

“Joseph?”

It _is_ Joseph, standing with his back turned to Sebastian, facing the night with the body of a woman in one hand a bloody _knife_ in the other. He turns slowly to look over his shoulder as Sebastian carefully steps closer, the older man’s finger no longer on the trigger of his gun, because regardless of what Joseph may have done, he _won’t_ shoot his _partner_. Joseph’s eyes are dull and unfocused behind the lenses of his glasses as he stares at Sebastian, looking as if he is not really seeing the man, his mouth slightly askew. At the very least, his pupils aren’t preternaturally wide and his skin is even and unblistered. He isn’t having another “episode,” or at least, not one of the kind he experienced while trapped in Ruvik’s head—if he even _can_ still have one of those.

Sebastian keeps a watchful eye on him even while kneeling and prying open his fingers to take the woman’s body away from him. Joseph just gazes at him dumbly the whole time. Sebastian lets his eyes leave his partner’s face for a split second as he presses a finger to the woman’s neck in hopes of finding a pulse. When his fingers slip into a gash in her neck, barely visible through all the blood, he knows it’s useless. The severed artery beneath his fingers still squirts blood every few seconds, its warmth and wetness making her feel like she almost _could_ still be alive. But her skin is gray, her eyes unseeing, and her jaw hanging open wide.

She’s dead. There’s no denying that.

Sebastian stands. His eyes dart to the knife still clutched in Joseph’s right hand then up to his face. Gently, carefully, he takes Joseph’s hand in his and loosens his fingers one at a time until the knife falls from his fist. “Joseph,” he tries again, leaning in close and peering into his eyes. “Joseph, are you with me?”

Joseph twitches and his vision gradually comes back into focus. He blinks several times and opens and closes his mouth like he wants to speak but doesn’t know what to say. “I…” He licks his lips and swallows hard. “Sebas…tian…?”

“Yeah. Okay, that’s a start.”

Joseph pulls his hand from Sebastian’s and examines it for several long seconds, his brow furrowing as he sees the crimson soaking into his skin. He jerks into full attention then, his panicked and confused eyes landing back on Sebastian’s face. “Oh god. What have I done.” It isn’t a question but a statement, saturated with fear. “I was just— I don’t— I thought I was back _there_ , I thought she was one of those _things_ , I thought she was a _Haunted_ , I didn’t—“

“Be quiet,” Sebastian snaps, his fingers going back to Joseph’s trembling hand to tighten around his wrist. The light over their heads flickers as he talks. “You didn’t do anything. Did she scratch you?”

“I don’t—“

“Joseph. Did she scratch you?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” Joseph says slowly, shaking his head. His eyes are glued to the body of the woman, to the pool of blood around her. “What does it matter? I _killed_ an _innocent_ woman.”

“We’ve both killed before.”

“But I’ve never killed someone who was completely innocent!” Joseph protests, jerking his hand back and stumbling to a table to lean over it, looking like he might throw up any second.

“I have the knife,” Sebastian says as if Joseph had never spoken. “Everyone knows we came here tonight, so they won’t question our DNA being found here. And if it’s not under her nails, there was no fight. Nobody has to know it was you.”

"Sebastian, _no_ ,” Joseph whirls back around, fear and anger on his face in equal parts. “We have to call the police."

"We  _are_  the police, Joseph. And you're my partner. You aren't going to jail for murder. Nothing happened. You didn’t do _anything_. We got here and she was dead already. Got it?”

“Sebastian…” Joseph steps forward, his eyes stuck to Sebastian’s face now instead of the body at his feet. “Please, we can’t—”

Sebastian returns Joseph’s gaze evenly. “Got it?”

Joseph’s eyes squeeze shut, tears collecting on his lashes, but he still nods. He forces his eyes open again to fix on Sebastian’s steady face. “But Seb.” There’s a desperation in Joseph’s voice as his hand curls at his side that the older man has never heard before. Joseph is looking at him like he’s trapped in a pit, staring at the rope that’s his last possible hope but is just out of reach. “What do I do now?”

_“What do I do now?”_

Sebastian has lost Myra.

_“What do I do now?”_

He’s lost Lily.

“ _What do I do now, Joseph?”_

He’s lost _everyone_ except the man standing in front of him with the blood on his hands, the very man who he asked that same question after the death of his daughter and the disappearance of his wife. So he sets a hand on Joseph’s shoulder and just says quietly, “You do what you always do. Nothing happened tonight.”

He won’t lose Joseph too, no matter the cost.


End file.
